Life Of My Own
by Proton Star
Summary: Being Called means you don't have to marry.


Title: Life Of My Own

Author: Red Fiona

Disclaimer: I don't own ideas behind the slayers, that's all Mutant Enemy's. The characters are mine.

Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Characters: Original Female Character

Ratings/Warnings: PG gen fic.

Summary: Being Called means you don't have to marry.

* * *

She knows that she has reached marriageable age. Her fifteenth birthday had passed a month ago, and families that her mother had put off by saying she wasn't ready to be wed were starting to sniff around her again like dogs after a hind.

Her mother understands, in a way. She thinks the problem is with the men that ask for her hand, but that's not it. While they're none of them handsome, *that* is not the problem.

She doesn't expect love, or to be wooed, her family are too rich for her to be that naive. Her hand comes with money and, while doing their best to please her, her family would give her to another house that would help to maintain their power. She thought she had accepted that, and maybe she had in the abstract, happening to someone else, someone who is not her. She had grave doubts about it applying to her.

Yet there are no other options. Or none that she wishes to take. Holy orders are out of the question, although the church would happily take her bride-price.

There are several reasons for her refusal, not least of which her disobedient nature, but more than that, there's something sinister about the new Friar of the Servites, whose friary is close by. It s the way he watches her, pale blue eyes staring at her constantly whenever he was near her. Not to mention the way he always seemed to be where she was, which was odd for a man of the church.

One night she does a deeply foolish thing, and climbs out of her window. She's gone that far often enough, but normally she is satisfied with sitting on her window sill and watching the birds fly through the trees that surround the manor house. This time, it is not enough. She's filled by a restlessness which urges her onwards. So she walks out, into the wood.

In the daytime, the wood is pleasant and full of life. In the darkness, it is different somehow, feeling more dangerous even before anything happens. The sound of twigs snapping which she would normally assume were due to animals treading on them become heralds of something frightful.

That is when the thing attacks. It is roughly the size and shape of a man, but more fierce, with strange protuberances about his face, horrible, huge, yellowed teeth more like wolf's fangs, and stronger than any man she had ever known.

The Friar tosses her a wooden stake, sharp, and she stabs it through the creature's heart before she thinks to ask why or what or who. The creature explodes, leaving her covered in ashes.

It takes her time to recover, her breath coming in shallow gasps and her hands shaking. The Friar waited for her to come to herself before speaking.

"I am sorry to have subjected you to that, my child. I would not have done it if I had any other way to show you your destiny."

"What was that?"

"It was a vampire. A creature of the Devil that was once a man. The world is plagued by devils such as this. But God in his mercy has given us a weapon against them - you." She still didn't understand. "This is your destiny."

The Friar continues, explaining that this was why he had so often followed her, dark creatures were attracted to this mystical warrior she was supposed to be, the Slayer. She doesn't come close to understanding it all. "Go home, my child, and sleep. It will be clearer in the morning."

It isn't. There are things she knows, most importantly that she hadn't imagined it. Even if she had been fanciful and prone to imaginings, which she isn't, she still has the scratches from the trees to prove that it had happened.

Then there were the things that don't make any sense, the existence of these creatures, the frankly ridiculous idea that she was going to stop them. If anyone in her family was special, it was her sister Elizabetta, the prettiest girl in this part of the country.

But one thing is clear, this is her way out of marriage, any marriage, because she couldn't be expected to be this slayer, and a wife and mother, nor would she be a nun, not a proper one. Neither bride of man nor bride of Christ, but warrior for both.

The Friar starts to train her, teaching her how to fight, what to fight and how to kill it. Her mother is suspicious of the amount of time she spends with him, which is understandable, because she had never been the sort of girl who sat and read her Bible as often as she should. It would have worried her more if her mother hadn't cared about the Friar's intentions. So she tries to put her mother's mind at rest, laughing and joking like she used to, and explaining that what the Friar had shown her was the glory of the Lord and the joy of doing good works.

She speaks to the Friar, because she'd thought of something else that might reassure her mother. "Say you don't want my dowry to join the Order."

The Friar looks shocked, and says he won t, "I don't want the money for myself, but your life will be hard enough, the money is to keep you in better lodgings." But she stands firm, and she is accepted into the order without her bridal price.

Despite the fact that she wasn't going to be a real nun, because she is still not someone who reads her Bible, they still have to go through the ceremony. The other friars insist that all of this was most unusual, but her Friar, her Watcher as he called himself, said that he had a letter from Rome that permitted it. She suspected it may have been from Rome, but she doubted it was from the Pope. It, or the threat of it, still worked to get the Friar's way. During the ceremony, she watches as her auburn hair is cut off, and the coif is put on her. The haircut is useful, as she finds her hair only gets in the way when she is fighting. It also aids her disguise; she now follows the Friar as a novice monk, because people ask fewer questions when two monks travel together than when a monk and a nun are companions.

They chase evil from the lands, travelling from monastery to monastery, staying at inns along the way. She suspects that it was the quality of these inns that the Friar had intended to improve with her dowry. They couldn't have got much worse.

She writes her mother letters, full of things that aren't quite lies. Because she does do some of the Works mentioned in the letters, accompanying the Friar as his silent novice (Brother Filip, so it goes, has not the way of words. It's amazing what people say to her and around her, thinking that not being able to speak means she is unable to hear). Other works are those of the monks and nuns she meets on the way. It keeps her mother happy though, to think that she is doing well.

And she is, even if it's not as a nun.

She does good, killing demons and vampires.

True, it's not an easy life, even beyond the terrible inns, but it's hers, and hers alone. There is no-one, no husband or father, to try to take away her freedom or her strength so she is truly happy in her life.

* * *

End notes: The prompt originally came from the 2011 lgbtfest. I don't think the fic I wrote fits the requirements for the fest, but I quite liked the story anyway.


End file.
